I Want My Life to be With You AngelBuffy
by clairedelunexx
Summary: What if Buffy and Angel hadn't broken up before the night of the "The Prom"?


How Angel's and Buffy's break up should have gone

Buffy and Angel walked along the dirty sewer, approaching the half-hidden manhole under the water. _Why did I wear my white sweater? _Buffy asked, pulling up the hatch and tossing the lid across the sewer tube.

"I'll go down first," Angel, her vampire boyfriend offered, stepping up to the hole and disappearing into it. Buffy bit her lip and climbed down the ladder, and when her foot reached the last rung, she felt his cold hands grasp her waist and help her to the gritty bottom. Buffy wiped her smut-stained fingers against her jeans and walked beside Angel, comforted by his presence. It always amused her how she could be so attracted to him. Being a Slayer, the ultimate killer of all vampires, she should be driving a stake through his heart, but instead, she found herself making out with him on their late-night patrols. Past Slayer, Kendra, had been confused and current Slayer, Faith, who had gone rogue - had hesitantly accepted the fact that Buffy was intimate with Angel.

"I always say a patrol's not complete without a trip to the stinky sewers," she said nervously, eager to break the eerie silence. It had always been in her nature to fill up a space with meaningless talk.

Angel kept his head down, and said, "I'm sure I saw him come here."

"Couldn't we just let this be the vamp that got away? We could say he was this big," Buffy explained, holding her hands apart as if telling some "big fish" story.

"What can I say? I need closure," Angel said, giving her a curt smile before getting back to scanning the tunnels. Buffy rubbed his back, noting the way he cringed at the slight touch of her hand on him.

"You need clothes. You don't have a tux, do you?" She asked, feeling giddy at the though of him in a flashy tuxedo, showing up on her arm a the Sunnydale High prom. Her _senior prom. _

"Since when did patrolling go black tie?" Angel asked, giving her a quizzical look.

Buffy smiled and shoved him playfully. "For the prom, Silly."

His face seemed to twitch uneasily and he shook his head, "We have more important things to think about right now than a dance, Buffy." He said, shoving his big hands deep into his pockets.

"Sorry, Giles. I'll just be quiet." She walked alongside him in silence, mulling over what he was saying until he broke the quick silence with an irritate retort.

"Come on, don't be that way." As soon he said that, a vampire dropped down from the ceiling and charge toward Buffy. She rolled her eyes and raised her stake.

"Not now," she said and casually plunged the pointy wood into its heart, immediately puffing him into a fine dust. She turned toward Angel again and gave him a coy look. "I'm not being 'that way'. Every time I say that word 'prom', you get grouchy."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just worried that you're getting too…invested in this whole thing." He trudged forward, hands still shoved deep into his pockets, booted feet splashing dully in the filthy water.

Buffy caught up to him and touched his elbow, forcing him to turn around. "What whole thing? Isn't this the stuff I'm supposed to get invested in? You know; going to a formal, graduating and growing up?"

"I know," Angel said in a tormented voice. That worried Buffy. He hadn't sounded this tortured since he had first come back from Hell, fighting the inner demons plaguing his soul and tainting his judgment. Last time that had happened, he had been persuaded to wait at the hill overlooking Sunnydale to meet the dawn. Buffy sensed his uneasiness now and prodded him for more information.

"Then what? What's with the dire?"

"Its, uh, nothing," he said, looking embarrassed. If he had been human, he would be blushing right about now.

"No. You have 'something' face." Buffy said. It took a moment from him to answer, but when he turned to face her, his face was twisted into a painful frown.

"I think we need to talk," he finally breathed. "But not now, and not here."

"No. No, if you have something to say, then say it." When he didn't respond, she stepped closer to him and peered into his deep, dark eyes. "Angel; drop the cryptic. You're scaring me."

"I've been thinking. About our future. And the more I do, the more I feel like us, you and me being together is…is unfair to you." When he finished, Buffy's face was worried, and she stepped right up to him, reading out to touch him.

"Is this about what the mayor said? Because he was just trying to shake us up."

Angel turned away from her. "He was right."

Buffy clenched, in a state of immediate panic. She didn't like when Angel was like this; all skeptic and such. It struck her as very wrong and it practically screamed second-thoughts. "No. No, he wasn't. He's the bad guy." She touched his elbow again and forced him to turn around and look at him.

He shook his head. "You deserve more. You deserve something outside of demons and darkness. You should be with someone who can take you into the light. Someone who can make love to you."

Buffy clenched her teeth and square her shoulders. "I don't care about that."

"You will," Angel pointed out, and touched her elbow. "And children."

Buffy blanched in surprise and had to hold back a bark of laughter. "Children? Can you say 'jumping the gun'? I kill my goldfish!" She couldn't believe that they were actually having this conversation. Where was all of this coming from, anyway?

"Today. But you have no idea how fast it goes, Buffy. Before you know it, you'll want it all; a normal life."

"I'll never have a normal life."

"Right," Angel said, nodding in understanding. As if he knew what she was talking about, but she didn't think he did. Not really. "You'll always be a Slayer. But that's all the more reason why you should have a real relationship, instead of this – this freak show."

Buffy stepped back, stumbling on a loose stone beneath the grimy water. Angel's large eyes seemed to dilate in surprise and he reached forward to touch her, but she flinched away from him.

"I didn't mean that."

"I'm gonna go," she said, starting to turn. But he reached forward and grabbed her elbow, afraid that she would flinch again, but she stopped to look at him again; a certain hopefulness in her large, hazel eyes. In that short moment, she could see the pain in his eyes and knew how much it killed him to say this. Something was wrong, but before she could speak, he cut her off almost immediately and parroted her exact thoughts.

"I'm sorry, Buffy. You know how much I love you. It kills me to say this."

"Then don't," Buffy pled with him, feeling the tears coming. She didn't really care about that, for he had seen her shed several tears. But not now. Right now, on patrol, she was the Slayer. "Who are you to tell me what's right for me? You think I haven't though about this?"

"Have you?" Angel asked, holding up his hand when she opened her mouth. "Rationally?"

Buffy rolled her eyes in disgust and turned around, walking farther into the tunnel. But then, she turned around and gave him a hard look. "No. No, of course not. I'm just some swoony little schoolgirl, right?"

"I'm trying to do what's right here, okay? I'm trying to think with my head instead of my heart," Angel said, his voice cracking and painful. Buffy wanted so much to forget all of this and throw her arms around him, let the tears fall. But then she remembered who she was.

Buffy looked at him as if he had just grown another head. "Heart? You have a heart? It isn't even beating!" But she regretted the words as soon as they flew out of her mouth. They were like serrated-edge knives piercing his cold skin. To a vampire without a soul, the remark wouldn't have hurt. But to a vampire _with_ a soul, it was as bad as killing a human and then having to feel guilty about it.

"Don't," Angel warned, but there was no threat in his voice.

"Don't what? Don't love you? I'm sorry. You know what? I didn't know that I got a choice in that. I'm never gonna change. I can't change. I want my life to be with you."

Angel looked down at his feet, moved his foot around in the water and then looked back up at her, his eyes riddled with pain.

"I don't."

"You don't want to be with me?" Buffy asked. She could feel her heart breaking as she tried to register what he was saying. "I can't believe you're breaking up with me."

"It doesn't mean that I don't...," Angel began, but faded off when she started up again. She shoved her stake into her back pocket and sniffed back the tears stinging the corners of her eyes.

"How am I supposed to stay away from you?"

Angel shrugged and ducked his head low. He couldn't bear to look into her sad, betrayed eyes. This was harder than he had set out for it to be. He hoped that she would understand that this was hard for him, but that he had to do this. "I'm leaving. After the Ascension, after its finished with the Mayor and Faith. If we survive, I'll go."

"Where?" Buffy asked.

"I don't know." Angel said truthfully.

"This isn't happening,' Buffy suddenly said, stepping toward him. He looked at her with wide eyes and stepped back, but she grabbed his elbow, digging her fingernails into his skin. "You're not leaving me, Angelus. You are _not _deserting me when my life has finally started to make some sense."

"Buff-," he began, but she slapped him.

"Don't you _dare _try to wiggle out of this, Angelus. I know you don't want to leave me, and you're only doing this because you're afraid of losing your soul to true happiness, but you listen here," she grabbed his face between both hands and forced his eyes onto hers. "I won't ever let that happen. I don't mind being abstinent with you. Just holding you in my arms gives me joy. Last night, when you watched me sleep, and I woke up to see you, that was true happiness. Not once did you lose your soul."

"But,Buffy…," he started, but she released him and punched his stomach.

"If you lose your soul every time we have sex, then that's not true happiness. That's just losing control every time you get a big boner. You've been truly happy this whole time, Angel, and not once did you turn back into your alter ego. You are a good man, and I love you. I don't care that you have a soul, but you cannot just leave me because you think I can have a normal life without you here."

He stood there a moment, still trapped between her hands and then breathed in shakily, pulling her close.

"I just want to make sure you want me to be with you."

Buffy let go of him and gave him a hard glare. "I love you." And with that, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth, ignoring the tears pouring down his face. He responded just as wildly to her, crying like she was, relieved that he didn't have to leave her all alone, doomed to face college by herself.

He would remain in Sunnydale.

There to fight alongside the Vampire Slayer for as long as she lived.


End file.
